Globes to roll out red carpet under cloud of sex scandals

FILE – In this Monday, Dec. 11, 2017 file photo, Golden Globe statues appear on stage prior to the nominations for 75th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. The Golden Globe Awards will be handed out on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2018, at a ceremony is being held under […]

The Golden Globes, once the stomping grounds of Harvey Weinstein, will belong to someone else this year.

But whoever takes home awards Sunday, the spotlight is unlikely to stray far from the sexual harassment scandals that have roiled Hollywood ever since an avalanche of allegations toppled Weinstein. Before his fall, Weinstein lorded over the Globes and two decades of winners.

Everything in Hollywood’s carefully choreographed awards season has been altered by the still unfolding revelations of sexual misconduct, from the nominees to the red-carpet wardrobe. Out of solidarity with the victims of sexual harassment and assault, many women have said they will be dressing in black for the Globes.

Eight actresses, including Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and Emma Stone, announced Sunday that they will be bringing gender and racial justice activists as their guests, including MeToo founder Tarana Burke and the director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Ai-jen Poo. The advocates and activists said Sunday that their hope in walking the red carpet is to shift the focus back on survivors and solutions, and away from perpetrators of sexual misconduct.

Red carpet arrivals will be streamed live on Facebook beginning at 6 p.m. EST. The ceremony will be live-streamed on NBC’s website and its app for viewers with a paid television subscription.

The ongoing reckoning has derailed Oscar campaigns and prompted new ones. Among the nominees Sunday night is Christopher Plummer, who was brought in at the last minute to erase Kevin Spacey from Ridley Scott’s “All the Money in the World.”

It should all make for an unusual atmosphere for the Globes, which have long fostered a reputation as the loosest, booziest evening of awards season. Even former host Ricky Gervais has acknowledged Sunday’s awards will have an awkward tone.

“If I were hosting the Golden Globes this weekend, I wouldn’t be brave enough to do the joke I’ve just thought of,” Gervais said Wednesday.

Hosting duties will fall instead to a Globes rookie: late-night host Seth Meyers. He will have his hands full trying to match last year’s broadcast, hosted by Jimmy Fallon. It was watched by 20 million viewers, an eight percent increase.

“We don’t want this night to be a session where we’re just scolding everything that happened because it is really important for us to remember that great movies came out of this year,” Meyers told The Associated Press last week. “A lot of people, we’re realizing, worked really hard in environments that were not that conducive to working really hard. So the goal is to have people have a wonderful night and an enjoyable party in a year which everyone deserves it.”

Last year’s broadcast also roped in one notable viewer: then President-elect Donald Trump. He was critical of Streep after the actress’s forceful political acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. This year, the honor will go to Oprah Winfrey.